MATCH VERDICT: Bourne battle on to beat bogeymen Thorney

Bourne head coach Dave Maudsley and assistant Nigel Lindley saw their pre-season work on the training field rewarded with a brilliant win at bogey team Thorney.

An eight-game losing streak going right back to October 2012 came crashing down at Ron Jacobs Playing Fields as tries by Don Sweeting and Jack Lagdon sent Bourne back along the A47 and A15 in jubilant spirits.

The players had never really beaten Thorney before but we kept our heads, waited for their pack to get tired and when our chance came, we took it.Dave Maudsley, Bourne RUFC head coach and fly half

The visitors were helped when one of the Thorney wingers was red-carded for what Lindley called “an act of cowardice and thuggery” on Bourne number eight Adam Binns,

But after conceding a total of 348 points to Thorney in eight league meetings over the last four years, including 116 unanswered points in their last two meetings at Milking Nook Drove, Bourne were in no mood to let foul play spoil their unbeaten start to the season.

Maudsley said: “It was a very enjoyable win and a very hard-fought one as well.

“The players had never really beaten Thorney before, having gone down twice to them last season, and the way things started it looked like that was going to happen again.

“About 26 people made themselves available for the game and although we lost a couple of them during the game, we could easily get by because we’ve got a big squad.

“We kept our heads, waited for their pack to get tired and after the half-hour mark, they looked lost so that when our chance came, we took it.”

Bourne were 7-0 down after a converted try by Thorney before an unconverted try by Sweeting try and a Drew Alexander penalty put them 8-7 up at half-time.

Lagdon grabbed the winning try - which went unconverted - but Thorney’s resistance had been long burned out by then.

Lindley said: “The boys played very, very well and they deserved the victory.

“Thorney were up for the first 20 to 25 minutes and they got a relatively early try.

“But we stayed with them and then they had a player sent off for an act of cowardice and thuggery, by which time we’d scored anyway.

“We were comfortable winners in the end and there’s a big, positive feeling amongst the team.

“Thorney was a good, all-round performance after a very poor first half where we struggled and then a realisation that the boys needed to stop getting pushed around and to assert themselves in the second half,